Authority Relationship From a Societal Perspective: Social Representations of Obedience and Disobedience in Austrian Young Adults PMC

Summary of his work, called the ‘Remote’ condition), the learner, who was in a separate room to the participant, was restricted to banging on the wall at 300V and then ceasing to respond after 315V. All participants went up to the 300-V mark and 65% continued to 450V. Obedience and religion were both subject to cultural adaptation during the turbulent sixteenth century, as the three books under review will show. To be a private entails obedience to military superiors-but perhaps not to superiors who order their subordinates to commit atrocities or violate international law.

• This is usually attributable to the dilemma found in submission to the authority .
• In the study, experimenter wore a uniform or laboratory coat which symbolized higher status of the person thus influencing the increasing obedience.
• Many social and political movements, such as the civil rights movement in the United States, use minority influence to change the views of the wider population.
• It is a very compre­hensive concept that includes not only criminal behaviour but also many actions not subject to prosecution.
• Socialization is the primary source of conforming, obedient behavior, and obedience to the law.

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult (Bond & Titus, 1983; Geen, 1989). In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal (Latané, Williams, & Harkens, 1979). This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose . If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985). This idea was pursued by Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist.

2B: Conformity and Obedience

Studies have also shown that the rate of obedience to destructive commands drops sharply if the participants are reminded about the amount of responsibility that will falls on their shoulders . Social influence is the process whereby one or more people presence, whether real or imaginary can affect thoughts, feeling and behavior of individual under extreme or no pressure at all or even persuasion.

There are three areas of social influence, namely, conformity, compliance and obedience. This purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the concepts of compliance, obedience and conformity and also to look at the factors that influence each one of them to see the differences https://accounting-services.net/ and similarities between them. It seems that in conclusion, conformity stands apart from compliance and obedience, which share more similarities than differences. Other psychologists point out that Milgram’s procedure also took advantage of conformity and compliance processes.

What is the Difference Between Conformity and Obedience

In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

• This compares with public compliance under Kelman’s theory of social influence.
• For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to 48%.
• Unbeknownst to the participant, the person supposedly receiving the shocks was actually in on the experiment and was merely acting out responses to imaginary shocks.
• Likewise, they can retain the credibility of the group and work together towards their goal without any unwanted pressure.
• One participant, a confederate, was asked to learn a set of word pairs and the teacher would test his knowledge of these pairs.
• When conforming to the social norms of a group, a person may disagree with the opinions that they express or the actions that they take, but nonetheless, they adopt the behavior that is expected of them.
• Confucianism believes people will internalize acceptable norms and only take proper actions.

After meeting the «teacher» at the beginning of the experiment, the «learner» sat in another room and could be heard, but not seen. Teachers were told to give the «learner» electric shocks of increasing severity for each wrong answer. If subjects questioned the procedure, the «researcher» would encourage them to continue. Subjects were told to ignore the agonized screams of the learner, his desire to be untied and stop the experiment, and his pleas that his life was at risk and that he suffered from a heart condition. The dependent variable in this experiment was the voltage amount of shocks administered. Social control is established by encouraging individuals to conform and obey social norms, both through formal and informal means.

Words nearby obedience

The study found that all of the participants obeyed the order to shock the learner, but to varying degrees. Psychologists have spent decades studying the power of social influence, and the way in which it manipulates people’s opinions and behavior. Specifically, social influence refers to the way in which individuals change their ideas and actions to meet the demands of a social group, perceived authority, social role or a minority within a group wielding influence over the majority. This type of social influence is quite different from compliance or conformity since the latter is due to peer pressure or behavior adopted in order to match that which is popularly practiced. Psychologists have found that human beings can be so obedient to a legitimate authority figure regardless of whether the command obeyed is moral or against ones conscience .

• Group conformity can also encourage cooperation when attempting to achieve a shared goal.
• If there has been prior acceptance of status differentiation and of obligations to obey, the obedience is normative or value-based.
• He also found that the more the experimenter prodded the participant to continue, the more likely they were to stop the experiment.
• If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985).
• The former refers to the practice whereby an authority gives commands to an individual to commit a difficult task, or rather an offense that the person would have otherwise been unlikely to do.

Understand the two primary reasons why people often conform to perceived norms. Become aware of how widespread conformity is in our lives and some of the ways each of us changes our attitudes and behavior to match the norm. IiThe use of this term is probably due to participants being students of Sigmund Freud PrivatUniversität and consequently being acquainted with obedience refers to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories. Maura Pozzi – Researcher and Adjoin Professor in Social and Community Psychology (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore). She is a member of the Athenaeum Centre for Family Studies and Research. Her research interests concern volunteerism, prosocial behaviors and intergenerational dynamics in families and communities.